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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551889">In the Dark of Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scholarlydragon/pseuds/scholarlydragon'>scholarlydragon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Poisoned Salve [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lore Olympus (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angry Sex, Angst, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:27:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>993</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22551889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scholarlydragon/pseuds/scholarlydragon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you just can't say no to what you know is bad for you? Hades and Thanatos started this as a simple convenience. Neither expected it to carry on.<br/>There's always a next time. Even if this is the last time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hades/Thanatos (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Poisoned Salve [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In the Dark of Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>With thanks to Jessy and Alulah.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>This is the last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They've said it every time, one or the other of them, from the very first. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It started, as such things often do, with a simple need. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades, newly arrived in what would become his domain, was hurting. With the wounds of ostracization cutting as deeply as his newly healed war-wounds, he hungered for a friendly touch. A kind word. Except he couldn't let himself admit it. The need for connection for the young, scarred, mute god, had led to blossoming romance and such tenderness it made his heart ache. Only to end in rejection and a back-handed compliment from his own brother. He would be charged with the greatest responsibility in the cosmos: caging the Titans and keeping all of creation safe. But Hades knew the truth. Neither of his brothers could be bothered by such responsibility and, in the Underworld, he was safely away from Hera. Tossed away for the sake of expedience. The rejection burned like an ember in his gut. He wouldn't let himself be that needy fool again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thanatos had watched the new king for some time before making a move. Hades' pain and leashed anger was clear to see, though no one in the Underworld knew the source. It was no matter. Thanatos was not above using those in power for his own ends and if the powerful had weaknesses that could be exploited, so much the better. He was not malicious. Of course not. But the god of death was a survivor and cultivating favor with the powerful was the best way to survive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time, he went to Hades in the middle of the night. It had been a long day of setting up the shade processing. Even after a few centuries of the Underworld kingdom's existence, problems still emerged with regularity that needed prompt attention. Both gods had been bone-tired, in need of something mindless to decompress.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thanatos had offered Hades a night of sex. No strings attached. Only warm hands and warmer bodies, and a chance to forget for a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades hadn't responded in words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The king had grabbed Thanatos by his lapels, kissing him hard and hungry. There had been nothing of care in the crash of lips, tongues, and teeth. Only furious, desperate need.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bodies pressed, growing erections strained against constrictive cloth, and it wasn't long before Hades turned Thanatos against the wall and, with a hurried preparation of spit-slick fingers, plunged inside. Thanatos' wings flared wide as he squealed with pleasure and came hard over Hades' stroking fingers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They fucked the remainder of the night, there in the king's office, taking again and again and again. Once, toward the end of the night as Hades sat slumped at his desk, Thanatos had asked if the crown was heavy with a sarcastic grin. Hades' glare had been perfectly eloquent and Thanatos had knelt with a chuckle, using his mouth and tongue to bring the king to a shuddered climax. He knelt before the brooding king, showing him the reverence due a lord of a realm. It wasn't long before the maudlin demeanor left the king and he combed his fingers into Thanatos' hair, taking pleasure from the death god. The next morning, Hades told Thanatos flatly that it wouldn't happen again. The god of death agreed readily enough. He was pleased to have had the king for as long as he had. Plus, he had a hunch. It wouldn't be long before the god of the dead returned for more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It turns out, Hades lasts longer than expected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ten days later, he passes by Thanatos' desk,  gruffly tossing a piece of paper onto it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Office. Tonight.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Thanatos smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night Hades takes him over his desk. He draws out the fucking long and slow until Thanatos squeals, rising onto his toes, wings and body trembling. He pants and pleads, begs and moans, desperate for climax. Hades simply grins and whispers filthy things in his ear before allowing Thanatos to come across his desk with a yowl of painful ecstasy. At the end of it, the reaper is the one to call a "never again". He has never made these noises for another and he is troubled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But even he cannot stay away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It becomes a sort of game. They both know it will happen again. Hades will seek out his flower nymphs and goddesses. Thanatos will bed anyone who looks twice. But they both know sooner or later the god of death will kneel before the god of the dead and beg so prettily to suck his cock and to be fucked to senselessness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades will stroke Thanatos, but never uses his mouth, never lets him in. Thanatos is fine with this. He's not sure what he'd do in response to a vulnerable king. Prefers to think he couldn't be that soft. He'd rather be fucked anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades takes to keeping lube in his desk drawer. As he plunges into Thanatos at the end of a long day in which the god has pissed him off for the hundredth Fates-damned time, he tries not to examine the impulse he has to see how loudly the bastard squeals with rougher entry. The cruel impulse carries his father's laughter and he won’t give in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Again and again as the years and centuries wear on, the gods come together in brutal sensuality. A frenzy of climax, sweat, and fluids as each cry out passion but never emotion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Hades yearns as he plunges into his employee's body for the tender touch he cannot allow himself, Thanatos never knows it. If Thanatos hates himself and his king afterward for allowing this interaction of convenience to become something that could have been so much more, Hades never knows it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is only the moment, then the aftermath of dancing around each other as they wait for the next. Because they know...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is the last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there's always another.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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